Chamber Music Series: Summer 2016

14 April 2016

With the fasting (for some) of Easter behind us, the new term of Kettle’s Yard concerts offers rich and varied fare. Music across nearly 300 years, from Bach to the present day, is packed into just three concerts. Alongside masterpieces of the chamber music repertory, there is new music inspired by Beethoven and a modern-day completion of Bach’s unfinished work.

Krysia Osostowicz and Daniel Tong open the term (12 May) with the third in their Beethoven Plus series. Three sonatas, including Beethoven’s popular Spring Sonata, appear with their newly-composed companion pieces by three acclaimed British composers – Elspeth Brook, Judith Bingham and Huw Watkins.

On 19 May, the pianist and Cambridge alumnus, Alasdair Beatson, gives a recital of Ravel, Schubert, and Beethoven’s ‘Waldstein’ sonata, interspersed with simple yet captivating miniatures (the Katekok, or ‘games’) of Gyorgy Kurtag.

The season closes on 26 May with Bach’s Art of Fugue performed by Fretwork, ‘the finest viol consort on the planet’ (Evening Standard). The clean and sinuous sound of viols is perfectly suited to following such intricate and, as the eighteen fugues and canons unfold, increasingly complex counterpoint. However the final fugue, with it’s three themes, remained unfinished at Bach’s death (and some scholars believe he intended to include a fourth theme). This concert features a new completion of the final fugue by Richard Boothby, a founding member of Fretwork.